SMS vs. MTV

[P. Kerim Friedman]

I have found it useful, in thinking about the impact of recent
technological changes on language, to look at academic research on
another technological innovation: literacy. I think linguistic
anthropological debunking of technological determinism in that realm is
equally applicable to just about every technology which has come since.
Here are some refs I've found particularly useful on literacy.

Halverson, John. "Goody and the Implosion of the Literacy Thesis." Man
27, no. 2 (1992): 301-17.

Akinnaso, F. Niyi. "Schooling, Language and Knowledge in Literate and
Nonliterate Societies." Comparative Studies in Society and History 34
(1992): 68-109.

Street, Brian V. _Literacy in Theory and Practice_. Cambridge
Cambridgeshire ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

I think there are some good arguments for the social implications of
technological change, such as some of the arguments that Eisenstein
makes for the printing press:

Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. "Some Conjectures About the Impact of Printing
on Western Society and Thought." Journal of Modern History 40, no.
March (1968): 1-56.

But these are not arguments about how people "think" as much as they
are about the social implications of organizing knowledge production in
new ways.

-kerim


On Tuesday, September 2, 2003, at 10:44 AM, Ron Kuzar wrote:

> Dear Colleagues,
> I have been approached by a journalist on a topic I know nothing about,
> and I thought this list might provide or produce some knowledge on this
> topic.
> His tentative thesis is that the SMS generation is more textual and
> more
> linearly oriented than the MTV generation, which was much more visually
> and aurally stimulated.
> If anybody knows of any research about social implications of SMS
> and/or
> about a comparison between technological generations, I will forward
> this to the journalist.
> Best wishes
> Roni
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